Davesbs Blog

As some may know, I do work with Apple Mac stuff. Some may call it the Dark Side of the force, especially as some of their clients will be asking about the shiny new iPhone and linking it to Exchange!

I am not going to get into a Mac vs Windows discussion, each have their place and I try to specialise in having both work nicely together in a network situation. They are just tools really after all.

BUT…when setting up my girlfriends new 24″ iMac the other day, I just had to be reminded of how simple and dare I say it, enjoyable it was. Now this is not integrated into any Active Directory structure yet, it is hanging off a Netgear ADSL Firewall device for Internet access.

30 minutes was really all it took including taking out the Apple installed 2 x 1GB memory sticks and replacing with 2 x 2GB’s. The iMac has two slots and it is cheaper to buy memory yourself, keep the factory installed parts as spares and upgrade to the maximum 4GB, than to get apple to supply the machine with it!

The fun will be connecting it to my SBS 2008 Beta network, though I think I will have to bite the bullet and get a Mac Mini for testing. The new iMac is for her indoors work so I better not tinker too much

On that note, if anyone wants to get down and dirty with the Dark Side and who has never touched a Mac ever or not for many years, the Mac Mini is the ideal companion. I reckon there is a model refresh/update about to hit as all the other Mac computers have been done. Newer Intel chips and better graphics (Intel GMA X3100) are the order of the day even in the laptop range, so a new Mini must be coming soon. Watch this space as I think days or weeks rather than months and the tight lipped Cupertino will announce a new Mini. Rumours are abound about it being very small at half the size of the existing model as they will do away with any optical drive.

I have been accused of now liking the Mac by the missus as oppossed to seeing it as a necessary but attractive tool. Time will tell….I have spent most of the last few days in front of the iMac instead of any PC. Haven’t done that since I worked in the printing trade

Robbie Upcroft’s SBS Down Under blog announced that Suzanne Dansey has become Australia’s newest SBS MVP! Another SBS MVP joins the list in Australia

Well done Susanne. Keep up the good work

Congratulations to Nick Lloyd and Sirona Solutions, who recently became the latest member of the Microsoft Small Business Specialist Community.

If you know me or read this blog you will know that I am great supporter of SBSC and although there are many things which could be done differently or improved upon, I think it is invaluable to the partners who stand behind it.

Nick has even said that this blog contributed to his decision to start blogging about the community http://nickssmbblog.blogspot.com/2008/06/smb-and-sbs-blogs.html

Good on ya Nick!

The server (souped up desktop PC) I have been using for three years is frankly f***ed.

I bought myself an HP ML110G5 with dual core Xeon, four 250gb non-hot swap Sata drives of the new HP Midline range and bumped the ram up to 6GB. Also comes with a next business day 3 year on-site support contract.

This will be my new ‘production’ server once I also get an ML310 or 350 for testing with Virtual machines etc. At the moment it has SBS 2008RC0 on it running just fine, well apart from the DNS issues I blogged about!

The cost of this small but perfectly formed beast? All in just over £700! I might even get another with less drives and memory as the base machine with 1GB ram and a 160GB Sata HD comes in at about £180.

For those of you who do Dell (you know who you are :-)  and not HP, take another look. Excellent build quality and for me, the killer is onboard Sata raid 1. Yes….I can hear the screams already But compared to the dell small servers which don’t have any onboard raid controller, this is a significant advantage. It is a proper and tested Adaptec controller chip. I do not need anything more. If I did, I could get the HP Smart Array E200/128 for £200 or any of the HP range of controllers. Remember this server only has 4 drive bays.

The debate about Sata vs SAS and onboard vs Raid controller card with memory and possibly battery backup will rage for a while if I have anything to do with it

Just a heads up regards SBS 2008 RC0.

I and a few others are having issues with DNS (have a look on Microsoft Connect at your dashboard if you have the public preview and check the bug reports).

Every couple of days internet access flakes out. Testing from the router is fine, Ping and DNS diagnostics run fine. In my case the router is a Netgear Prosafe DGFV338.

Restarting the DNS services on the Server or re-running the Connect to the Internet Wizard (CTIW another new anacronym!) fixes the issue for a few days.

I was about to put in a bug report but searched first and found it was already reported on 30th June. Please always search the bug reports first, it will help streamline the bug hunt! The issue is being looked at and MSFT have not found it to be in their code. We look forward to a fix.

Call me strange but this gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling, being able to download previews and betas, see updates and bug reports and join relevant newsgroups all from a central MSFT Connect site!

It also feels good to be able finally to help shape the upcoming and great looking SBS 2008 product. So far it feels like light years ahead of SBS 2003. Various little things… you get the picture, sign-up for the preview and test if you haven’t already.

Also keep up with David Overton’s blog as he frequently posts about SBS 2008 and has screenshots of installs etc.

Cheers and happy bug reporting! 

Watched a Scottish BBC news item on t’telly tonight about broadband speed.

It seems that the average speeds across the country are about 2Mbps download with some place like Northern Ireland being less that that or indeed, crap!

Some bloke who works in a little village up northern Scotland has to take his boat out to cross a loch just to receive email.

Now don’t get me wrong. I know there are the infrastructure arguments about the UK roll-out of BT’s 21CN network etc etc yawn yawn and how much it will cost. That’s for another blog post.

The real point is that to me, this guy in his boat and many many others like him are the ideal candidate for the hosted/cloud Exchange or Sharepoint. He and his fellow company people may turn over a healthy amount by designing the next big engineering marvel. Just so happens they are geographically spread. They like to live in peaceful remote places. Just one scenario, as is the traditional ten people in a city office sharing info.

How the hell will the cloud work when the usual even business class broadband in this country is so crap. Yes you can buy reliability nowadays, but we need more bandwidth and speed. Try cloud Sharepoint over an ADSL connection whilst looking at your cloud Exchange mailbox and surfing the web. Oh dear….why is this so slow. The data center may have loads of bandwidth to t’internet but that matters not once it’s out there and needs downloading.

And before anyone suggests that the client should just go and get a T1 or leased line or whatever bandwidth rich connection…well I don’t know of many clients who would swallow that cost just to move to the cloud!

MLSS, I passed!

A big thanks go out to Lesley March the (used to work at Microsoft but now works with them) licensing trainer and James Henderson, the Scottish Partner Manager.

Lesley was about the best at explaining Microsoft -isms I have ever encountered, from either the training or marketing perspective! Also, doing the 7 courses in one day is quite hard work for us partners and for Lesley! The MLSS is normally done over 2 days at least I think. Time to think about those 23 Software Assurance benefits

Thanks to James for organising the event and for showing willing by taking the course himself. He admitted later that he didn’t know quite as much as he could when it comes to the SMB side of licensing and the issues us SBSC partners face daily regarding licensing our clients software.

Saw James the next night at the Edinburgh SBS Users Group meeting which was the most lively I have ever seen it. James gave a run down of the changes at Microsoft Scotland (and UK) when they move the Edinburgh office to Waverly Gate (Google-Waverly Gate Microsoft, for details in the press). This new headquarters will include a technology center and new Partner suite. These will be Partner driven and can only make Microsoft Scotland a more responsive and less ‘provincial’ outpost

Looks like I missed a blog entry by David Overton in April:

http://uksbsguy.com/blogs/doverton/archive/2008/04/12/where-will-your-customers-be-looking-for-solutions-will-they-stick-to-on-premise-or-will-they-move-towards-a-s-s-or-saas-solution-not-from-you.aspx

I just posted on a couple of newsgroups re the debate about hosted or ‘in the cloud’ services that seem to be everywhere at the moment.

Microsoft are now offering hosted Exchange and Sharepoint and many partners have been doing so for a while.

Many in the community of Microsoft partners are worried about the impact hosted services will have on their own business. If client companies no longer need a physical servir in their office, where will we get the services revenue from?

Cloud based services will be a fit for some but not a fit for others, there is no size fits all in this game and probably never will be.

Anyway, here is my post. Does anyone have any comments? Hopefully you will as this is something that will need to be debated sooner rather than later and not just split between the Vlad’s Cloud is everything argument and the we will survice small IT shops!:

“Hi all,

With all the talk of hosted this and SAAS that, what do you think the
landscape will be for the ‘typical’ SBSC consultancy firm in the next
few years?

Vlad has made it pretty clear what he thinks, though he would, being
a seller of ‘Cloud’ services

Susan Bradley has pointed to the very real fact that some business
owners just don’t trust the web to deliver the services they need or
that privacy concerns play a part. Some companies like or need
physical server infrastructure. It is tangible and they have some
control over it.

I personally think that the market will fragment. The low
end ‘consultant’ or SPF in Vlad speak, the type who sell action Pack
to their clients will disappear or go back to getting rid of viruses
on little Johnny’s porn riddled home PC.
The companies they used to service may well go for the Cloud hosted
Exchange/Sharepoint or even cheaper, hosted Office/Google Apps etc.

The larger SMB on the other hand may want to cut costs by getting rid
of costly internal IT staff and go Cloud based.

I still see a good market in the middle for the focussed, valued and
personal services of a small consultant who has the best interest of
the clients business in mind.
My personal market target is SBS server, maybe multi-site with 5-20
PC’s. I have been told over and over again that it is precisely
because of the way I help the client business that they consider me a
valued business partner. I pick up work from larger ‘faceless’
IT companies who see the client business as a commodity. The business
owners certainly do not think that they are a commodity!

Don’t get me wrong, I think that the Cloud will become a major player
but I don’t think that it will be a good fit, ever, for some
companies. I happen to be excited about the Cloud as I see other
opportunities and don’t want to be all doom and gloom like some
others in the community i.e. we will all be out of business in 3
years time because Microsoft is offering hosted Exchange/sharepoint

Anyway, thanks for reading.
Thoughts?

Dave Whyte
101 Digital Services”

On Wednesday 28^th May I will be attending a Microsoft Licensing Sales Specialist training day in Edinburgh.

I am actually looking forward to this, mainly as a way to help my clients with the minefield that is MSFT licensing. It may be quite gruelling being a whole day event but it is to incorporate tangible rewards unlike many IT training days where you come away with sales bumph or short notes.

To quote from the invitation email, the day will “take you through all the modules in the MLSS certification programme as well as taking you through each of the exams and hopefully allowing you to gain the Microsoft Licensing Sales Specialist accreditation.”

Places are limited at these events and I don’t know where else they are being held but they look very valuable. Those who do manage to attend will hopefully be able to give some insight back to other MSFT partners through the newsgroups or local User Groups etc.

Have a look on the MSFT partner website for details.

If anyone who isn’t going wants a specific question answered, drop me a line or comment to this and I will do my best to get an answer from MSFT Licensing trainers.